


Raspberry Blonde

by Audley



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audley/pseuds/Audley
Summary: I died. Or I think I did. All I know is I can't take my Machi wig off and now there's an eccentric cartoon man here telling me that I'm going to Meteor City, ten years before canon events. Ten years is a hell of a long time without a script. Don't SIs usually get more direction? This isn't at all what the fics said it would be like![Phantom Troupe Self Insert]
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	1. Sew it Begins!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alamak=Oh my god!

Dead. I'm _sooo_ dead. Nadia is going to kill me.

Slithering through shiny crowds of polyester, and rainbow wigs, I haphazardly carry the props that were due to Nadia 45 minutes ago.

I had overslept and now I'm late meeting her for Lion City ComiCon. The problem is I still have Nadia's prop, and she sewed my cosplay so I'm still not dressed for our photoshoot that started 15 minutes ago.

I find Nadia by the entrance, leg bent against a pillar, lanyard badges dangling from crossed arms, looking like a very, _very_ disgruntled Shizuku. The humid sun glares on her glass frames, but they don't suit her because Nadia has eyes like a hawk and they sharpen like talons as I arrive.

"Alamak!" says Nadia. "What took you so long?!"

"The MRT was delayed and the trains were full. It wasn't my fault, lah!"

"Bullshit," says Nadia. "Your text said you were doing your make-up on the train. How is your eyeliner _already_ smudged?!"

"Because I poked myself in the eye trying to put on these blue contacts!"

A group of Amestris cosplayers from Full Metal Alchemist sidestep us, their cringing expressions on us betraying their dignified uniforms.

"You smell like fish and sea salt," she says. "I thought you were staying on the island! Don't lie! That's why you're so late!"

"It's not my uncle's fault. Here, I stayed up all night finishing this," I say, brandishing my bundle. She unzips the duffel and pulls out the blue neck of a vacuum.

I refer to the switch on its neck. "Give it a try."

Nadia thumbs it.

The foam prop comes alive, plastic googly eyes rolling as she wields it. "Gyo, gyo!" says Blinky, mouth fanged with polymer clay teeth chewing over each sound.

Nadia's face softens but she doesn't let her guard down, stretching out the pain for as long as she can muster. Before she can smile and betray her anger, she takes Blinky and punches a bag at me square in the chest.

I open it to see my wig in raspberry blonde, perfectly styled in an updo with a tailored Machi uwagi, gloves, pincushion, obi bow (already tied!) and leg warmers.

"Hurry! If you go to the bathroom and put it on now, we can make it before they call for the Phantom Troupe line-up."

* * *

It turned out to be an excellent Lion City ComiCon.

We made our photoshoot, (I had to hold onto my wig while running, but we made it.) Turned out the organizers were also late and they were still taking Leo/Pika photos. By the time the Phantom Troupe were called up, Nadia had chilled out, acting out her best blank-headed Shizuku expression. It takes me more effort to give the ice-queen death glare, otherwise known as Machi's perma-bitch face. Turns out my eyes still stinging from contacts worked perfectly for Machi photos.

After the official photoshoot, we posed by the bay, with the Merlions, snapping some serious shots, some goofy because the Merlions themselves are pretty goofy (tourists love them tho). We took turns carrying Blinky. Being 90% foam, Blinky was light, but also bulky and unlike her anime counterpart, Blinky couldn't be conjured (or is it deconjured?) by the will of Nen.

That's when the memories start to fog for me.

Like flashes of photography, I recall eating chicken rice, slurping super sweet boba that probably gave me a cavity. I remember wishing to take off my wig and getting swatted by Nadia. "Not until you're back in your civilian clothes," she said. I remember a too-in-character Hisoka, who took the Hiso/Machi pairing a little too seriously. Nadia took a picture of me giving him _you-better-fuck-off-now_ eyes and said it was my best rendition of Machi the whole day.

I remember walking towards the TRT station, fishing in my bag for my pass, the glimmer of the night sky. I remember the alighting train, boarding with Nadia, thanking god for the air-conditioner blowing into my wig, reading fanfic on my phone and then...that's it.

If I saw the beckon of comforting light lifting me up into this new world, I might have been semi-prepared, so less naked in what was about to happen.

No pain, no crash, no moment where I could grasp that _everything_ was about to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! Clicking that Post New button never gets less scary. I've always been dying to write a self-insert so here we are! Who knows if the world needs a PhantomTroupeSI but let's experiment for now. Join me for the ride, readers? ;)


	2. SI Grand Central Station

I confess, when I read self-insert fanfictions, I usually skim this part. But grant me this selfish indulgence. This _is_ a curious experience.

* * *

One second the train is packed with business suits from Marina Wharf and neon blue lanyard attendees from Lion City ComiCon. Nadia's jeaned legs are crossed next to mine, with Blinky cradled in her lap.

The next second, I awaken, the kind when your head slowly nods off, and your body jerks, jumpstarting like a car. I wipe the wet corner of my mouth with my glove.

The train car is empty. Even Nadia is gone. Anger and hurt course through me and I could feel it heat my skin like steam fuming from my pores. Seriously, Nadia left me drooling on the train? Maybe I'm still sleeping because she would never—

I check my phone. No service. I _am_ underground, but the clock and date are flashing straight zeros, blinking in confusion.

"It's confusing, I know," says a voice from further down the car.

A dogman, beige fur, tongue hanging out, wearing large square glasses. Oh OK, another cosplayer, but something strikes me as odd. Flatly colored, lined as if drawn with black marker, two simple dots for eyes, he appears like an animated character imposed on reality, like _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ , _Space Jam,_ or _Mary Poppins._

Second odd thing (as if the first wasn't odd enough) I have seen this dogman before, drawn in every single HxH hiatus announcement in Shonen Jump.

I rub my eyes for good measure. But the Togashi cosplayer doesn't disappear. "Hi," I say. "Do you know which station is next? I missed my stop—"

"Audley," he says.

I really look at him. For two dots behind glass, his eyes are expressive and soft on me.

"How do you know my name?" I ask. Perhaps he had heard Nadia say it, but that wouldn't explain the pity in his voice.

 _"Eehhh,"_ he says, sheepishly pawing behind his dog ear. "As soon as you came here, I learned quite a bit about you."

 _"Here?"_ I know he doesn't mean the train, but rather the shift in atmosphere as if we were climbing in altitude. The surrealism of a dream and the lucidity of being awake, the cusp of two worlds—one foot in and one foot out.

"We still have a bit of a train ride," he says, his dangling dog-tongue wagging with each word. "I will explain everything."

He sits across from me, his wet triangle nose shiny.

"As soon as you came here, I learned quite a bit about you. _Nothing too private_ but details like your name, your age, the fact that you write fanfic for my series—"

"Your series? Are you…?" This is preposterous, but I gulp to ask. "Togashi?"

"I am not literally Togashi," he says, his long floppy ears shaking in no, less dog-like, and more puppy-like. "I am a manifestation of him in the series. I am one of many guides to this world."

"And what is this world?"

"The beginning of your next story. You're being inserted into a series. Much like those fanfics you read." He winks.

Incandescent lamps above us, not a beckon of comforting light as promised in fanfics.

"How did I...die?"

Togashi-Dogman seems to panic and waves a paw dismissively. "That's not what I'm here for! I discuss what happens next!" At my dismay, he says. "Well, what did you expect? That I was going to go fake-deep with some pseudo-philosophy about life and death? Beyond this realm, I know as much as you do. I'm not God, a god; I'm here to give you a peaceful passage to your next location."

"You're Botan."

A proud shine in his square glasses.

Even with the air conditioning, my head aches from wearing a tight wig all day. I reach to take it off, but the wig refuses as if the plastic fibers had fused with my hair.

"Don't yank out your hair in frustration," says Togashi-Dogman. "You're too stressed for a young lady your age. I thought you would be excited about where we're going."

"Where are we going?"

"Just a quick transfer."

The train slows. I hold a bar as we halt at a train station I definitely haven't visited before: SI Grand Central Station.

The doors _ding!_ sliding open and Togashi strolls out, hands _-err_ paws clasped behind his back. I follow him through the doors, where the arrow signs take us, then up the escalators, and a grand station, not unlike Penn Station, yawns open.

"All self-inserts come through here," he says. "What do you think?" 

It's like being back at Lion City ComiCon with the sheer number of characters and fandoms, rubbing shoulders, their faces passionate, jubilant. "It's magical," I say. "This train terminal is straight out of Wreck-It-Ralph!"

Togashi-Dogman's eyes literally cross into dashes. "This is _not_ Wreck-It-Ralph. You're only contextualizing it. Your brain is scrounging for something familiar."

By the marble arch, there are the Harry Potter self-inserts, a collection of Hogwarts robes, the air sparking from their wands, and beside them, the Pokemon self-inserts, all sharp upright hair and twinkling anime eyes bigger than my wrists, and in the center—

"Alamak! Is that…" I recognize the green garb, hair perfectly braided, and Naruto insignia. "Isn't that…Shikako from Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine? She is a _legend_ in fanfic." I try to wave, but I'm so star-struck my wave looks more like groping the air.

"Yes, those are the Naruto self-inserts," says Togashi-Dogman.

ATLA benders to the left, BNHA inserts with their quirks to the right, I twirl like a ballerina, energized, trying to drink it all in. "So do I get to choose which series? Or does it have to be a Togashi series?"

A large sweatdrop at his temple. "It will be a Togashi series..."

"Ah, which one? Yu Yu Hakusho? Level E? Hunter x Hunter?"

"The one you've previously written fanfic for..."

Hunter x Hunter. I'm going to meet Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio. "So how is this going to work? Reborn, adult consciousness in slimy newborn, toddler years, adolescence, motivation sparks to take the Hunter exam, find my way to the test site—BOOM! Canon events! I'm alongside the main four? Or I'm _one_ of the main four?"

He halts suddenly and I almost crash into him. He turns around and rubs the lavender sleeve trim that Nadia had sewn immaculately between puppy-finger-nubs. "Well-sewn, but this material is not going to hold up where you're going."

"Where am I going?"

"You're going," says Togashi-Dogman, light glares over his glasses so I can't read his expression. "To Meteor City."


	3. Yorknew, New and Old

"Meteor City?!" I more mouth the words than utter them and I don't know why my vocal cords aren't working. "Meteor City..."

"You know that place. You wrote some fic set there," he says.

Meteor City, the city of fallen stars, not even a city, but a trash dump. A trash dump on a bone-dry wasteland. Not the anime-fantasy I had in mind. "What character will I be?" I find the wits to ask.

Togashi-Dogman wrinkles his nose and angles his glasses up to give me an appraising look. "You're already dressed like her."

I touch my pink fringe and gaze down at my clothes—the gloves with the pincushion on my dominant hand, how I almost accidentally poked an eye out twice while trying to pose for photos, the leg warmers that constantly slipped below my knees and puddled at my ankles, the shoes that were glorified socks, how every single bump and crack in the street poked my heels as I walked all day with Nadia. The hilarious part? Machi's outfit had been one of my more practical cosplays. What I learned from my Sailor Mars is that you cannot convince me those girls actually battled the Negaforce in those mini skirts and heels. Super cute though, and I'll admit the eight-year-old anime-fan in me cried when I put on the entire sailor fuku…

"You're not going to Sailor Moon," he says. "And no, I can't tell you anything about Naoko Takeuchi because I am not _literally Togashi._ "

That reminder means I don't feel so disrespectful when I sass him. "Look, _buddy_ , there's no way I can go to Meteor City. Since you apparently know so much about me and can even sense what I'm thinking, you should know as well as I do that I am the _LEAST_ Machi person ever. She's a badass, sharp as a tack, she can sew up nerve endings like some broadcloth and I can't even sew a straight stitch. Why do you think I made Nadia's props and she sewed my cosplay? The Phantom Troupe are my problematic faves, I even wrote fic about them—" I tug at my uwagi, a show of an imposter. "But I'm _no_ Machi."

There's so much commotion in this totally copy-pasta train station from Wreck-It-Ralph that most circle around us, yet my rant does earn a few furtive side glances. No one intervenes, maybe they're used to this scene breaking out in S.I. Grand Central Station.

Once again, light glares over his square glasses, hiding expression in his eyes. There's no sun, how does that keep happening… I brace for a return on the sass, but he doesn't.

"Perhaps the decision to insert you into Machi was too swift," he says. "Since you disapprove, and would like some choice in the matter, please come with me."

I'm getting what I want...I think, yet there was an underlying coldness in his delivery that I don't know what to make of.

Some transfer hubs are busier than others, depending on the size of fandom, but he leads us to the furthest end of the station. I feel I'm in an airport and my flight departs at the very last terminal. After fighting the throng of people, soon it's only our footsteps echoing on the tiles.

"Sorry," he says. "They make sure it's a bit of a walk. You have to know where you're going to find this place."

"Where _are_ we going?" I ask, reading the signage for reference. Anime, Books, Cartoons, Comics, Games, Plays, etc, all thick black arrows point the _opposite_ path of where we're going.

"Oh, you'll see," he says.

Up and down escalators we go, down one long hall that I swear is a dead end until we turn an abrupt corner.

"Here we go!" he says, the path end comes so fast I almost fall back. "Sorry, they make sure it's a long walk so no SI can accidentally stumble all the way here without thinking they should turn around."

A door. Painted gray it looks more like employee-only access-restricted point than anywhere an SI wannabe would go.

"Not that it matters because only guides can open the door." Togashi-Dogman twists the doorknob, spindle squeaking with disuse. He needs two paws to pull the heavy door ajar, his furry brow glistens with effort. "Choice is yours. But if you go through, don't look back."

I step closer, trying to peek. I wait for my eyes to adjust, but there's nothing in the abyss beyond the door frame. No light, no sound, no scent, no sense if I stepped in that my feet would hit _any_ floor.

"What's behind that door?" I ask. "What will happen if I step through it?"

Togashi-Dogman shrugs. "You could be dropped into a random series, or you may not be reborn at all, you may be sent _beyond_."

Is beyond a cute euphemism for _death_ and _after?_ "But you're my guide. You'll be there to guide me."

"I can't go with you. Once you go through this door, I shut it behind you."

"Then what?" I ask.

"Dunno, send me a postcard?" His muzzle wrinkles as he laughs, hanging tongue wagging like his tail. " _If you can._ "

His explanation is about as clear as mud so I hold the frame and really try to peer inside. The air or whatever it is against my cheek, nose, and forehead has...viscosity like pressing my face against a luke-warm water surface, yet my lungs take in air as easily as before.

"Decision is yours," he says. "You can go to Meteor City, be inserted into a character you recognize, among characters you like, in a series you know or…" His sentence drops like rubble off a cliff.

"Or?" I ask him and the abyss, my voice failing me again.

"Gamble on something else. Gamble on there _being_ something else."

I steal the doorknob from him and slam the door so hard dust from the frame dusts my sleeve.

"You know," he says. "He owes me a favor so I could ask Hajime Isayama if he wants another insert in AoT—"

 _Chomp! go my bones and organs between the teeth of a grinning titan._ My imagination is my worst enemy.

"Nope, nope, nope. I wouldn't last three minutes in AoT. I'd become titan floss on my first day." I all but drag Togashi-Dogman with me. "Anime was this way? HxH, Meteor City, and Machi sound peachy. Let's go there."

"Finally some enthusiasm!" With his paw, he pushes his glasses up his muzzle. "Well then, if you've decided, we're off to Hunter x Hunter!"

* * *

This time I follow Togashi-Dogman through to the...should it be called another dimension? Or are anime series an enclave of reality? Or a tiny tree branch of a greater source of existence?

The sensation at first feels we're being vacuumed up, higher and higher but then I understand we're _floating_. Molten colors pour in so bright at first my eyes burn—oh, it's just anime-saturation. As the splotches and blobs focus and become landscapes, the mercury silver becomes a downtown skyline. The smell of summer-heated cement and flagstone, the smog of rush hour blows at us with the wind. Though this is an animated world, it's as real as Lion City.

Definitely not Meteor City, but I hazard a guess. "Is that what I think it is—"

"Yorknew City," says Togashi-Dogman, floating upright as if he had a lot of experience, while I still vaguely groping the air, flapping my arms and legs, a mix between a bird and a fish. "Well, New Yorknew City to be precise."

"Are you sure not-Togashi? The series never mentioned a _New_ Yorknew."

"A creator doesn't divulge every bit of world-building into their stories. And to be frank, if you were paying attention, you would have noticed."

Floaty as a helium balloon pulled by a string, he moves us towards the Gordo badlands on the outskirts of New Yorknew. Behind us is a city, more silver than mercury, what yawns open to us is a wasteland of dusty brown and ochre. One one-lane road cuts through, from the heart of Yorknew, through the badlands, reaching for the horizon.

As the expanse comes into focus, among the rock formations are settlements, dilapidated, discolored, cracked sideways, glass from smashed windows glitters the ground, the city-body flesh swarmed clean by locusts. Rainbow light captures my attention as we float overhead.

A flower-crown of colored glass, heavenly and pristine—

"I recognize this place!" I point at the stained glass.

"The Phantom Troupe hideout," he says. "Otherwise known as Old Yorknew."

"What happened here?" I had been curious since I first watched the show. Was it a Chernobyl? Political ostracization? War?

An intellectual stroke of his non-existent beard. "The why and how I'll leave to your interpretation—"

I narrow my eyes. "Don't know, do you?"

A puppy-growl, a pinching in his forehead. "Doesn't matter for your story."

"Then why is this our first stop?"

"This is where Machi was born." The ghost-quiet air, save for swirls of wind, whispers this harrowing place has been lifeless for years. "You will meet Machi in Meteor City, where she is now."

"Wait, so no rebirth with the blinding light and confusion, the crying, and cooing parents? I'm _becoming_ Machi?" I say.

"We're skipping the birth canal scene," he says. "You should thank me."

I make a face and he laughs.

"What? You want to experience those babbling toddler days with grown adults going goo-goo-gaga at you with your full adult consciousness? Trust me, _no_ _one_ cares about your SI as a baby or a kid."

The rebirth scene as a baby that slowly finds awareness is a token of SI fics, one I'm not peeved to skip. "I didn't like being a kid when I was a kid," I say.

"As I already know!" he says. "See? I'm doing you a massive favor. I'm going to place you at the beginning of Machi's story, stuff that was never explicit in the manga. But you've always been _dying_ to know more about the Phantom Troupe backstory, no? You were contemplating writing a pre-canon PT backstory fic."

I dislike how he knows that. "So we're definitely starting before the first episode."

"Machi's story begins long before the first episode. Technically the day she was born, but for your sanity's sake we're starting _a_ _little_ before canon."

"How _little_ we talking?" I ask.

A sheepish-err, puppyish rub of his floppy ear. "Ten years or so. Could be more, could be less."

"Don't know, do you?"

"The day Machi arrives in Meteor City, on the cusp of becoming a teenager," he says. "Long before the main four take the exam, before the Kurta massacre, before Machi even met the other Spiders. My gift to you, PT-fan."

Before I can respond to his gift remark, how he's way too proud of himself for my liking, the landscape dissolves.


End file.
